by Katharyn » Sat Feb 24, 2007 10:55 pm
Title: The Sidestep Chronicle – Second Chronicle – Investigations (Part 216)
Author: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Constructive criticism is always welcome. Flames just demonstrate you have a tiny mind.
Spoiler Warning: Pretty limited. The story occurs in an alternate universe as set up in “The Wish” though reference is made to events that occur in both realities. Very little is referenced that occurs after S5 though. Guess why? Most “spoilers” would be for the first chronicle of this fic rather than the show and if you haven’t read that then much of this will make no sense but you can try and get round it by reading the preface to Part 104 which summarises most of what went before.
Distribution This story was written for Pens. Pens is its home. No archiving off Different Coloured Pens (This applies to all of the Sidestep Chronicle)
Summary: In the aftermath of Toni leaving, everyone is looking for her. Well what did you expect?
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the copyrights or anything else associated with BTVS. All rights lie with the production company, writers etc, etc. I am making zilch from this series of stories. You know the drill.
Rating: R – a general rating for occasional content. Individual parts might be less than this level.
Couples: Tara and Willow forever – others couples as necessary but nothing unconventional.
Notes: This is a transitional part getting the girls from where they are to where they need to be and forms another part of the ‘Against the Law’ arc. I hate opening with the kind of lines the below does, but it sets the scene from the last part and actually reduces the amount of exposition required.
Thanks To: My own special woman Louise who helps me so much with this on top of everything else. Those other friends and family who’ve also helped us overcome everything that was put in my way. Celia and Kerry who shaped this story and continue to do so when I think back to what they told me in the past. Xita for keeping the story hanging around and continuing to give us TKTWATBW.
The Sidestep Chronicle – Second Chronicle
Investigations
By
Katharyn Rosser
A few hours after Toni left in Part 215
Toni never turned up at Rupert and Jenny’s.
Even if they’d only been hoping she’d do that, Tara still blamed herself and she knew Willow was doing the same. And as you’d expect the Giles’ were entirely sympathetic, not to mention immediately concerned. “We should’ve kept tabs on her,” Tara said for the umpteenth time. “We should’ve done something.”
It was five hours since Toni had left and she and Willow had been over at Jenny’s since they’d decided it was taking too long, even with time to sulk.
It hadn’t taken Faith long to figure out something was wrong either. Smart cookie. The whole mood of the place had been upsetting her, Ben too, at least until they’d tried to keep things lighter for the kids’ benefit. Tara didn’t think they had her fooled though.
“As Willow pointed out,” Rupert said, “if you’d pursued her she’d only have run farther and faster. Faster than any of us can follow. As we’ve all seen, in a town someone on foot can easily escape someone in a vehicle, even if we’d gotten to you in time to help.”
“But where is she?” Tara asked fruitlessly, and again it was for the umpteenth time. That was the important question though. All this, all the rest of it was just about blaming herself and getting them nowhere. All the situation boiled down to was ‘where was Toni?’
“I don’t know,” Willow told her, giving her a long, tight hug. “But we’ll find her. I promise.”
The hug felt good, but didn’t do much to quell the pit of her stomach. “We shouldn’t have let her go,” Tara said again. Just because she knew self-recrimination wasn’t helping, didn’t mean she could get away from it. Both she and Willow had always had a talent for wallowing in it. It was their alternative to self-pity and probably a little healthier. Just a little.
“She’d have tried to hurt us,” Willow pointed out, “if we’d made her stay.”
Tara knew all this. They’d already said it all, and she’d known it anyway. But somehow these things just needed to be expressed again and again. It was all they could do right now. “She did hurt us,” she said.
“I meant physically,” Willow amended. “If we’d tried to keep her there she’d have tried to hurt us.”
“Or made you hurt her,” Rupert added quietly.
Jenny was off getting Ben ready to go out with them, searching. Ira had already been asked to check his yard and garage, just in case Toni had gone for familiar ground, and now was out driving around town looking for the girl. In a few minutes Jenny would be doing the same – taking the kids with her in the car.
The best plan they’d been able to come up with was that Willow and Rupert were coming with her on foot. Rupert’s presence was mostly about who was going to try to talk to Toni if they did find her though. And for the same reason they couldn’t really split up – not even to cover more ground. Rupert needed to be there. What if Toni saw one of them and they didn’t see her. Would she run further? Faster?
That’d solve nothing.
She hadn’t mentioned the possibility that Rupert being with them might taint the librarian in Toni’s eyes. At some point you just had to make a decision and go with it, instead of endlessly second-guessing.
“We still should’ve stopped her though,” she said. She didn’t know how, or what would have been happening now if they had but… Better that Toni had been here, safe.
“Well, at least this is what we do,” Rupert said, probably trying to change the subject to a brighter aspect of their day. “Finding things that don’t want to be found in Sunnydale is a bit of a speciality.”
“Toni’s smarter than most of them,” Tara remarked. Vampires were slaves to their stomachs, and most of the more destructive species of demons had patterns you could follow. Toni’s only pattern would be one intended to keep her away from them.
“Tougher too,” Willow added.
“In some ways,” Rupert agreed. “Though, at heart she remains a fifteen year old girl – I don’t think we should forget that and start overestimating her.”
“Tara was fifteen when she started killing vampires,” Willow reminded him.
Rupert blinked. “Well, yes. But I hardly think that’s likely…”
“We have no idea what she’ll do, or try to do,” Tara said. “That’s what’s worrying me so much, not just her being out there. What she’ll do.”
Willow frowned. “I’m going to fry Lilah the next time I see her. Slowly.”
Tara shook her head. “She didn’t tell Toni anything that wasn’t true. At least as far as we know.”
“I’m surprised you’re making excuses for her. There are ways of telling the truth,” Rupert said.
Tara didn’t reply. Her anger at Lilah was ultimately pointless – and yes, it did exist. But the lawyer wasn’t anything that Tara hadn’t made her. Karma was proving herself to be a bitch, as usual.
It’d backfired for Lilah as well though. Now both she and Lilah had lost Toni. No way the girl would want to be with her Mom. And now she didn’t want to be with them either. Great. About the only up-side for Lilah was she’d be able to blame this on them, prove they were ‘bad parents’ that Toni wanted to run away from.
Even if they could get her back, they may not be able to legally hold onto her after this.
And the only reason she’d taken the case at all was to hurt them. And she’d already succeeded in doing that. Tara wondered if Lilah knew it yet?
She wouldn’t be surprised if the lawyer had a better idea where Toni was than they did.
“Ready,” Jenny announced, hefting Ben in his car-seat.
“Where we going, Mommy?” Faith asked.
“To get Toni, hun,” Jenny told her.
“Why?” Faith used her favourite word once again. “Where’s Toni gone?”
Jenny told her the truth though. “We don’t know, munchkin.”
“Why? Is she lost?” Faith asked very seriously.
Was Toni lost?
“That’s right,” Willow answered when no one else knew what to say. “So you and Mommy are going to drive around and look out for her. You’re going to bring her home.”
Tara had to admit to herself, and she’d never say it aloud, but Faith and Ben might be their secret weapon in getting the girl to come home. Toni would never risk hurting them by struggling around them – not that she’d have reason to. But she’d never blame them either, as they were entirely blameless. If Faith was there…
Tara had a tough time imagining she’d run away from them either. Especially if Faith was asking for her.
Now, if only Jenny was the one to find the girl that might all work out…
“Kay,” Faith agreed easily, looking all serious and concerned. The little girl had gotten lost at the mall for a few minutes last year when she’d wandered off. Tara imagined the memory was affecting her now.
“So big eyes huh?” Willow prompted.
“Big eyes,” Faith agreed, demonstrating just how big they could get. Practically bugging out of her head.
Tara smiled as Willow ruffled Faith’s hair – provoking a squeal - and then started to fret about what holding your eyes like that for too long would mean. Kids could do that sort of thing though, Faith especially. She had no fear about running, jumping or bugging her eyes out of her head.
Fear, Tara decided, really came with age and experience. Freedom ended once you started to worry about whether something would hurt or not.
And that was why they were all terrified of what could happen to Toni out there.
“You still want me to swing by Mal’s?” Jenny asked them.
Tara thought about that some more, it’d already been a topic of their planning session. “We need to rule it out,” she said, looking to see if the others still agreed with her. They couldn’t believe it’d be that simple, but on the other hand it might just be. Toni was fifteen. He was her boyfriend.
Or Mal could know something.
“She could be right there,” Jenny agreed. “Panic over.”
And that’d mean it wasn’t as serious as they were worried it was. For Toni to be there suggested she wanted space, not to get away from them.
“I don’t think she would,” Willow said, and Tara could see that despite her words Jenny agreed with Willow. It wasn’t the best place to hide out if you were running away. Mal had the capacity to lie convincingly equal to a small shoe.
“What do I say to his Dad?” Jenny asked.
Mr Silver.
Mal’s adoptive Dad and Toni’s social worker all in one neat package. Now suddenly very much more inconvenient, and another reason Toni wouldn’t have gone there – at least not unless she wanted to get to a social worker. But for her to go there, to want to see him… it could result in her being in care. At least in her eyes.
Did she hate them enough to think being in case was a better option now?
“I think you tell the truth,” Tara said. “Lies and keeping things hidden got us here in the first place.”
“Just not the ‘why’,” Jenny summarised.
“Definitely not the ‘why’,” Willow agreed.
The ‘why’ was the reason Toni had run away. It was the fact she’d run away they had to fess up to.
The rest of it… There really was no good way to tell a social worker that Willow had once been killed, brought back as a vampire – twice – and then killed again (by her now girlfriend) so she could come back as a human. Oh, and by the way we killed Mayor Wilkins, your former boss, too.
And did he know the former Mayor was back in town? They’d thought about dealing with him again too.
No. They weren’t going to get into the ‘why’ with anyone.
“We may need him later,” Tara concluded. “If we have to report her missing. Lets not get onto his bad side by keeping it quiet now.”
“And what if he does ask ‘why?’” Jenny asked.
“In that case,” her husband replied, “I’d consider a lie. Since the truth is so unpalatable.”
“Just say you weren’t there,” Tara said. “Which is true, you weren’t. So you’re not sure and right now you’re more worried about finding her.”
“And see if he’ll help,” Willow added.
That was a good idea, another set of eyes. Another car. Someone else Toni didn’t hate.
“Okay,” Jenny agreed. She kissed Rupert and then hugged the two of them, before getting Faith ready to go out to the car.
“Big eyes, remember,” Willow said to Faith.
“I’ll find her,” Faith promised with absolute sincerity. Tara had to smile, even in the circumstances there was no way she could avoid it.
“Lets go get her back,” Rupert said.
-----------------
It seemed quicker for Jenny to drop them off in the centre of town on her way over to Mal’s. Rupert had come up with the valid point that Toni was hardly likely to be hiding out on their street.
But getting a ride was an act of kindness that involved everyone except the driver having someone or something in their lap. Ben, having a seat to himself being as he was strapped into in his car seat, was probably the most comfortable of them all. She was sat in Tara’s lap while Faith was in Rupert’s. It seemed better than the alternative. But it also made getting out of the cramped, French car a logistical feat in its own right.
“I swear,” Jenny said. “Next time we’re buying something much bigger.” It was a familiar topic. After several anniversaries and two children, Jenny still hadn’t bought a family car or a new house with her husband.
And yes, he knew about it. Willow was pretty sure both would be on their shopping list soon enough. Especially if certain other plans came to fruition.
“Call if you find her,” Tara said.
“Of course,” Jenny promised, and pulled away to start her own search as Faith made her big eyes from the back seat, waving to them.
The three of them stood looking around, wondering just how they were going to do this. “Split up or stay together?” Willow asked.
“We can cover more ground, more quickly if we split up,” Rupert said.
“True, but Toni’s not stupid,” Tara said. “If she doesn’t want to be found she won’t be.”
“So we’re doing this because…?” Rupert asked.
“Because maybe she does want to be found,” Willow said. She wasn’t as sure as her girlfriend that Toni was untraceable, but it was certainly true that this would be much, much harder if Toni was actively hiding from them instead of just being somewhere that was ‘away.’
Harder unless they broke their self-imposed rule on using magic to help find her. There were ways but they were complex and time-consuming to set up, given the girl wasn’t at all mystical. Finding just her in the mass of other people in town… that’d take some doing. Toni wouldn’t trust or appreciate them for it either.
“Where to start then?” Rupert wondered as he looked around at all the possible directions they could go in.
“I think she’ll keep off our hunting routes,” Tara said. “Those would be too obvious.”
Willow hadn’t considered that, but it made a lot of sense. The trouble, for Toni, was that the whole point of the hunting routes was that over a few nights they’d cover pretty much all of town.
“Unless she wants us to think that way,” she suggested after a flash of doubt. Toni wasn’t stupid – as they’d all said. In fact she was smart and resourceful. She’d proved it by escaping from the vampires and she’d proved it a hundred times over living with them. Maybe she’d stay on the hunting routes, hoping they’d decide she wouldn’t do that.
Would she double-bluff them?
Or triple-bluff? Making them think she’d double-bluff them, then doing the opposite?
“I’d rather we didn’t even start considering that possibility,” Rupert said.
“I was just saying –” But Willow knew exactly what he meant, once you started to think that way you couldn’t ever be sure whether your instincts were taking you in the right direction, or exactly the wrong one.
Tara had no patience for looking at it that way either. She was into take-charge mode and Willow, for one, was relieved. They needed someone to do that, and Tara was best at it of all of them. They’d had their time of doubt, now Tara was getting to the decisions necessary to find Toni.
“Stay off the usual hunting routes for now. If we haven’t found her when we’ve checked the rest of the town we’ll do a sweep later. Look for places that she could get into with a minimum of force. Ignore anything open for business unless it’s a coffee shop, library or somewhere she could get food or sit down without being hassled,” Tara issued her instructions.
Rupert nodded at each point and Willow was doing the same, consistently amazed at how Tara could just come up with this stuff. Long experience, she supposed, but even though she was hardly a novice herself it was still impressive.
“Did she have money with her?” Rupert asked.
“Some,” Willow acknowledged. “We gave her some just yesterday. I don’t know how much she had left, or whether she’s raided her savings.”
The savings account Toni had transferred over from her old bank and topped up with the money she didn’t spend that came from them. They probably needed to find out whether she’d cleaned it out. But later. A hack like that would take longer than the spell to find her, and be riskier.
“Make sure you check the off-street access too,” Tara continued.
“Anything else?”
“Public buildings or any open shelter. She might try those,” Tara said, but Willow could tell those were thoughts that’d just popped into her head. “It’s a warm day already, she probably won’t need shelter today, but there might be a sign where she was last night and could go back to. We’ll cover a street at a time, but Willow and I will follow the two back-streets parallel to the main street Rupert’s on. Checking the back doors and loading areas.”
They both nodded.
“You okay doing both sides of the street?” Tara asked him. “We’ll change it around when we hit residential areas.” Once they got there it’d be gardens, which would slow them down. Perhaps they’d just do one side of the street at a time.
“Yes, that’s fine,” Rupert confirmed.
“Here’s the thing,” Willow gave voice to what was worrying her. “What if we do see her?”
“Back off and let Rupert go to her,” Tara said without a moment’s hesitation.
“And if she sees us first? What if she runs?”
“Then we track her – we have the charms,” Tara said and Willow nodded. They’d brought what they needed for all sorts of tracking charms. They’d actually have to get one of those charms onto her though – that’d be Rupert’s first task if he got close enough.
All those nature programs might actually come in handy – since that was what they seemed to be doing.
But at least then they’d be able to find her magically. Being absolutely mundane would make a ritual to find her, without being marked by the charm, problematic at best and a great waste of time at worst.
“And if she sees me and runs?” Rupert asked.
“Then you better go after her,” Willow joked.
“She’s right,” Tara said seriously.
Willow looked at Rupert, who was meeting her gaze. Tara wanted him to run after Toni? Yeah, that was scepticism they were sharing. Rupert’s rugby days were long behind him, and he wouldn’t have been that quick even back then.
“Come on,” Tara said. “We need to find her.”
-------------------------
A little more than three hours of searching and they’d already cleared the main streets of Sunnydale – including some of the residential ones – though Ira was still doing a driving sweep up and down the blocks. No one expected Toni to sit still and wait to be found, unless she wanted to be.
Moving around would make her more visible though, which was why Ira was still out there.
Tara was almost certain they weren’t going to find Toni here in Sunnydale. She’d be long gone by now. The girl understood how well they knew Sunnydale. How they knew more sneaky places to hide than she did. Just knowing those things might’ve been what drove her to run further.
Earlier in the day she’d briefly considered staking out the transport terminals but with an airport, a port, a train station as well as about thirty places you could get a bus within running distance, how could they have done that and still made sure they’d checked the town itself?
Answer, they couldn’t have. At least not without some complex magic that’d still have kept them off the streets.
A decision had been required; no one else had been willing to take it so she’d just done what was necessary to get them moving.
Jenny’s call from Mal’s had revealed that the boy knew nothing – nor had Toni turned herself in to social services. That also confirmed she wasn’t likely to do what no one really expected her to – go to her Mom. Toni still didn’t want that, no matter what was wrong with her foster family, but social services would’ve been the easiest way to get to her if she had.
Of course, the other effect of Jenny going over there was that Mr Silver, Mal’s dad, knew Toni was missing.
There’d be questions later – in fact there were going to be questions now. Willow had gotten a call from the Judge’s clerk already. They’d been summoned to chambers. It seemed unusual, it seemed too quick. But it was a Judge, what choice did they have? Even when they were looking to Toni, they had to drop everything for this.
What were they going to say when they were asked what’d happened? And why?
It didn’t really matter – they just had to find Toni. Tara was looking at this diversion as a chance to get into the Courthouse and make a quick check there. Security would usually have kept them out – or at least forced them to circumvent it – but this way was easier. They’d be invited in and free to move around once they were inside.
First though…
She knocked on the door and was opened it as she was bidden to. “Good morning, Tara. Willow. Mr Giles.”
“Your Honour,” they chorused together without meaning to.
“I hear you’ve lost our girl?” the Judge asked, getting right to it.
“Not lost –”
“I’d phrase it –”
“Yes,” Tara said. She supposed the information must’ve come from Mal’s Dad. He’d have a duty to let the Court know, but she was surprised things had moved this fast. Jenny had only seen him a few hours ago.
And no matter what they might say, they had lost Toni. Even if the girl had been stood there, right beside the Judge, they’d have still lost her in most of the ways that mattered.
The Judge looked at them seriously and Tara could feel the weight of the older woman’s personality pressing on her. “We’ll talk about that another time,” she said eventually. “For now, I want you to find her.”
“We will,” Tara said, believing it absolutely. Nothing else mattered until they did that.
“I know you will. You’re the best people for the job,” the Judge told them. “You understand the world as it really is.”
So did the Judge really know about them and what they did? Or did she just think she knew?
“I’m not sure what you mean,” Willow hedged, obviously trying to draw out more detail.
“Yes, you are,” the Judge said firmly. The subtext was not to play those games with her. Firm but very fair. That was always the vibe they’d gotten off this woman. “I know exactly what you did for this town, and continue to do. I always do my small part to try to keep the legal problems you might face to a minimum.”
So this was the court official the old Mayor had briefed for that purpose?
Tara wondered whether the Judge knew he was back. But she’d always thought it’d been old Judge Willoughby who’d been taking care of this end of things. Live and learn. It just showed how dangerous assumptions could be.
“I don’t know what to say,” Tara told the Judge. She wondered whether the reply would be a request for thanks. She certainly owed someone for the Courts… patience.
She wasn’t naïve enough to believe that in five years – or more if you included the time ‘before’ – she’d never broken a law to get the job done. Some of those breaks would’ve been obvious to the mundane world too.
There was probably enough evidence, over that time, to point to her and Willow. To the Giles’ too perhaps. They’d always needed a person like this, who could manipulate the legal system on their behalf. She supposed there’d have to be someone in the District Attorney’s office too, and the police. But she hadn’t asked and wasn’t about to. If they’d helped her in any way, then their anonymity was to be respected.
“You can say ‘We’re going to find her’”
“We’re going to find her,” Tara assured her. She had every intention of doing so.
“Did she find out about your… past?” the Judge wondered.
“How did you know?” Willow confirmed it with her question.
Tara’s thoughts were elsewhere though. The Judge knew this much? And she’d still been on their side about Toni’s custody? That was… good. Or it would’ve been if they hadn’t lost the girl.
“Honestly, I’m surprised it didn’t come out earlier – but I suppose you two are the living proof that people see what they want to see, at least most of the time,” the Judge said. “You have two days and nights to find her, maybe a little more. After that…”
Tara nodded; it was an offer they couldn’t refuse and more than they had any right to expect.
“I’ll keep social services from bringing the police in until then, but they won’t hold off any longer than that.” The Judge looked at them, looking each in the eye. “They shouldn’t and I wouldn’t ask them to.”
And once the police were called they weren’t going to be able to be out there looking for Toni, they’d have to make themselves available to the police all the time. They might even be, temporarily at least, suspects in a crime that hadn’t even happened.
“We understand,” Willow said, making her promise.
“Yes,” Tara agreed. “And thank you.”
A little over two days? That’d work. If they hadn’t found Toni by then, it’d be very difficult ever to do so. The trail would get to be too cold.
“You won’t be thanking me if you can’t find her,” the Judge warned. “If you don’t then even I can’t stop a full investigation and who knows what they’ll find. Probably some death certificate irregularities, at the very least.”
Tara and Willow both nodded.
They’d worried about this before. Most of the time no one had a reason to look for a death certificate for someone who was plainly alive and walking around in the daylight. But if they were investigated in connection with a missing person then that, and other things, could easily come up.
Willow, for example, knew a whole lot about missing persons from her time as a vampire. She’d been the one who’d set a lot them missing.
Everything could get out of control, very easily. And if people found out, if somehow the news broke through what their minds wanted to believe… Sunnydale might not be a very welcoming place for either of them.
“Believe me,” the Judge said. “I’m warning – not threatening – you. You four are the best thing for this town – and probably for Toni too. But she’s fifteen. If you can’t bring her back then someone else will have to start looking.”
“We understand,” Rupert assured her.
“Well, you better get back to your search,” the Judge said. “I won’t keep you any further. Go find our girl.”
“We will.”
“And good hunting, all of you.” the Judge called as they left.
Tara looked back to her. “The hunting’s always good, Your Honour,” she said. “That’s always been the problem.”
----------------------
“Are you as uncomfortable about this as I am?” Willow asked. And she didn’t mean about being back home while Toni was out there alone. Somewhere.
“I would be,” Tara said, “If she wasn’t missing.”
“That’s pragmatic of you,” Willow said as she searched through the files on the computer. Toni had claimed it as her own ever since they’d let her use it and they hadn’t had a problem with that, they still had Willow’s PowerBook for what they needed.
“No, it’s realistic,” Tara said. “If there’s something here that helps find her then we need to do this. We should’ve done it last night,” she continued. “Before we wore our feet out walking round town. And I definitely want to do this before we waste time and energy trying a spell to help track her down.”
“If wishes were horses…” Willow said quietly to herself.
“What?”
“If wishes were horses,” Willow explained. “We’d have… you know...”
“Lots of horses?”
“Yeah, I mean… Okay, I know, I know. It was a bad choice of proverb,” she said. But they didn’t have a lot of use for proverbs in technology related sciences. That was her excuse, and she was sticking to it.
Tara squeezed her girlfriend from behind, arms looped around her neck. “I don’t think it’s a proverb, but don’t worry, love. We’ll find her anyway.”
It was easy to believe Tara. It always had been. When Tara promised like that, things happened. Her promises came true. Even if it took a little time.
“I know,” Willow said. “I just worry…” She didn’t say what she was worried about; they both knew what was out there. They both knew what kind of things might’ve found Toni before they could.
The hunt was, for the night, winding down. At least on the streets. The Giles’ needed to settle the kids down for the night and between them all they’d been all over town – several times - without any real sign of her. As Tara had said, if Toni was still in town she’d be taking shelter and that’d make her even harder to find.
They’d been – immediately after seeing the Judge – up to the City Hall clock tower. It was the place Toni had first hidden from them. And the signs were… Well, there had been what looked like the very corner of a wrapper from one of those chewy fruit bars Toni liked.
They knew she’d taken some from the kitchen as part of her preparations. As clues went it just suggested where she might’ve been, not where she was now. But a fragment like that – if that was what it was – was a sign Toni wasn’t looking to be found too.
It’d been left accidentally, and only a tiny scrap at that. She hadn’t left it deliberately to get them to come to her.
Having come up with nothing more than that after a day pounding the street, they’d decided to try the contents of the PC hard drive. “She cleaned out the temp files and her history,” Willow said. “And yeah, she’s deleted some of her e-mails too.” She’d already stopped the client replicating out from the network. She didn’t want anything to change on her.
The server at the DSL company end was step two – if they needed it.
“So?” Tara wondered.
“So, much as I love her, she’s an amateur with barely more talent for computers than my Dad,” Willow said. Toni couldn’t keep her secrets hidden from her, not on a computer. All it’d take would be time.
If there was anything to know.
“That’s a little harsh, baby,” Tara replied.
Willow shrugged. “I’m mad at her,” she said. “What can I say?”
“Really?” Tara asked.
“No. I’m mad at me,” she admitted with a sigh. She wanted to be mad at Toni, but she couldn’t find it within herself to blame the girl for what’d happened.
A few more clicks of the mouse. “Tada!”
“What’s this?” Tara asked, looking at the screen over her shoulder.
“Her cookies,” Willow was looking at the list in a text file format, stretching out the window.
“And that’s an internet thing right?” Tara checked.
“Yep,” Willow confirmed. “Every time you visit a website – especially a commercial one – there’s a good chance you’ll pick up or update a cookie. What they do doesn’t really matter, but what it does show is…”
Tara leaned over, trying to get a better look at the display.
Willow pointed. “The date it was created, the time too.”
She gestured to the screen, sorting the cookies by date and then scrolling till she found what she was looking for. “Last night, in the hours before she came to see us.”
That presumably had been when Toni had been making plans. And she had planned it. She’d packed, taken some food, some clothes. Money too. Cookies created then, for new sites she hadn’t visited before, might give them a clue.
“Hmm,” was all Tara said.
Not a bad ‘hmm’ just a ‘You take me where you want to go with this’ hmm. Always eager to impress, Willow indulged her lover.
“Now we just cut and paste the addresses, hit enter, chop off some extra bits. Rinse and repeat and…”
“What?” Tara asked as window after window fired up on screen.
“Voila, every website she visited last night – or at least every new one she hadn’t been to before,” Willow explained. Her working theory was that Toni had never had a reason to look for anything like flight or train schedules until now. So if something like that came up…
Tara reached past her, hand over hers on the mouse, clicking from window to window by pressing Willow’s own finger.
“There are thousands of other cookies here,” Willow added. “Lots of them will be ours I suppose, and if she visited one of those sites she or we’d been to before… Well, we might miss it, but this is a good start.” This was the problem; it’d used to be her PC. She’d never cleaned it up before giving it to Toni since it hadn’t been more than a temporary loan.
“Yeah,” Tara said, kissing her cheek in thanks. “But these will do for now. What’ve we got?”
“Hmm,” Willow said. “Sunnydale Journal. Old newspaper stories. I’m kind of impressed they actually have online archives, last time we looked we had to go down there and use microfiche.”
“Mapquest,” Tara pointed out after a moment exploring the newspaper pages. “Any way to see where she wanted maps for?”
There was a hint of relief in Tara’s voice. Maps implied Toni had a plan – and though that might make her harder to find, it’d also keep her safer than moving around aimlessly. Vampires, like criminals, gravitated to those who looked like they didn’t know what they were doing, or where they were going.
“Maybe,” Willow said, she wasn’t sure about that. She’d never really tried it before. “But look here. The Greyhound.”
“She got the bus,” Tara concluded thoughtfully.
“Uhuh.” You could go practically anywhere on a bus from here – or by a series of buses anyway. Give it a few days and Toni could be in Montreal, Alaska, Key West or Tijuana.
Or anywhere in between.
“If she was smart,” Tara said, “she’d get on at a stop down a street and change later, not at the terminal. Or maybe run out to a Greyhound stop outside town.”
Willow looked at her, smiled ruefully. “Not if she was ‘smart,’ if she was you.” Tara would know the tricks to avoid CCTV cameras and other ways of being detected. Had Toni thought of that?
Tara forced a smile too. “Maybe she left a trail though? Booked a ticket? Could you find out?”
“I can try,” Willow said wondering just what sort of security Greyhound’s ticketing server was likely to be running. It’d be holding credit card details so it was bound to be better protected than a few years ago, when getting into those sorts of systems had been as easy as pie. “But there might be an easier way.”
“What?”
“They e-mail you ticket confirmations,” Willow said. “Everyone does nowadays. Airlines, trains – all of it. It’s cheaper that way.”
“But you said she deleted her e-mails?” Tara checked.
“Indeed she did, but this is my computer and I bet she never changed the settings.” Toni hadn’t even changed the ‘Red on Blonde’ desktop wallpaper, so she was unlikely to have gotten around to the mail settings. Was she?
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I always download my e-mails from the mail server so I have a local copy, in case we lose the internet connection,” Willow explained.
“So?”
“So, I also leave a copy back on the mail server so I can work on my e-mail from anywhere, like college, and in case I lose the hard drive somehow.” Yes, it was anal. But right now it might save them a lot of trouble, and avoid breaking any laws.
Well, not as many.
Alright, at least not doing anything that was illegal that was also going to be highly visible.
Then Tara got it. “So her e-mail could be –”
“Right here,” Willow said, gesturing at the screen. “I know her password was her Dad’s name and date of birth.”
They scanned the screen together, scrolling past a whole load of mail from Mal that they weren’t going to open. When Toni came back and looked… then she’d see they’d only looked at what they had to. They hadn’t violated any more of her privacy. They weren’t going to give her reasons to hate them.
More reasons.
“You were right,” Tara said as the window opened.
“Yup, bus ticket reservation. Sunnydale to…” She scrolled down the e-mail. “To L.A. What’s in L.A.? Why would she go there?”
“It’s a gateway,” Tara said. “I hunted there for a few months, and the one thing you can say - apart from it’s a dangerous place - is that it’s a gateway to the rest of the world. Road, rail and air travel to anywhere you want to go. Even ships.”
“Hmm, well there are no more reservations,” Willow said. “At least not here. But that might not mean much.”
“Why?”
“Look – the bus reservation was the last thing she received – probably after she’d deleted some of her mail. She just forgot about it, or it arrived after she’d gone,” Willow concluded.
“How do you know?” Tara asked.
“Her junk mail is full of stuff from today, and the day before yesterday – but nothing from yesterday at all. She’s been getting nearly daily mail from Mal and some other people from school – but nothing shows for yesterday. There’s even some from him today.” Willow had to feel sorry for the boy, especially if Toni hadn’t said anything to him. She didn’t like to think he’d worry as much as them – but he would be worried.
And annoyed too, she was sure. Not being told and all.
“Smart girl,” Tara said, obviously pleased.
“Uhuh.”
“Can you get the deleted mail back?” Tara wondered.
“It’ll take time – even if it’s possible. I’d need to break into the mail server backups,” Willow said, thinking about how to achieve that. Again, things had gotten tougher for that sort of thing in the last few years. Gone were the days you could just waltz into confidential databases without anyone batting an eye.
It wasn’t that it couldn’t be done nowadays, just that they made the process more tedious and time-consuming.
“How much time?” Tara asked.
“Time we don’t have,” she said. “Hours at least. And I can do it just easily from my PowerBook as here.” That was her suggestion, get to where Toni was. And where she might still need them to be.
“Skip it for now,” Tara agreed. “We’ll ask Jenny to make a start. We’re going to L.A.”
*********************
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If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.
Chance in *Chance*
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. How will Toni react? I imagine her curiosity will get the better of her, but will she ask W/T or go to Lilah? I have a nasty feeling it'll be the latter. Oh dear, and it was all going so well...
)
